Two Gravediggers
by Foxieglove
Summary: Kurt receives unexpected help - if you could call anything from Tolensky help - in the cemetery after his mother's apparent death.


_A/N: just started ramble-writing one night while taking a break from MoSh 5, and came up with this. Kurt needed to get angry, and Todd . . . needed to be Todd. :P They make damn good foils for each other._  
  
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He didn't know how long he'd sat there. The shards scattered all along the beach were blurred past recognition in his eyes. So easy to pretend those shards were just ordinary rock. That everything in the past hour had been no more than a dream. Any minute, Logan was going to grunt and grumble his way down the cliff, barking for the elf to get inside. Kurt would shake himself out of the horrible nightmare his mind had wandered off into, and go in to draw himself a hot bath. Then, after he was settled beneath the soft sheets and covers, he'd dial Amanda's cell phone - set on silent mode so her parents could not hear the incoming call - and hold a long whispered talk with his beloved.  
  
But no bath, TV or even thoughts of Amanda could wake him up. Logan did not come down the path to hustle him off to bed, or even offer a word of solace. He was probably up there comforting _Rogue._   
  
Kurt's stinging eyes narrowed. Logan had never cared for Mystique. None of them had. They all probably thought him ridiculously sentimental and a fool for sparing one kind thought for this woman. Well if that were so, screw them. He wasn't going to turn his back on her like they had. Let them say what they would, _think_ what they would.   
  
Raven Darkholme was a person. A mother. His mother.   
  
He had a duty now to perform her that nobody else would; that belonged to him by blood right.  
  
Kurt knelt in the sand and gravel and began to pick up every shard.   
  


* * * 

  
The moonlit graveyard of Bayville was aglimmer with tombstones and plaques that reflected a pale pearlish gleam amid the wet grass and weeds. Some were marble engraved with elegant or block script. Some granite and etched out with stenciled care, tribute to the days when leaving one's final mark upon a plot of ground wasn't a competition of style.   
  
There were graves without tombstones or plaques of any kind. These were marked only by the six foot square of dead grass and sometimes flowerpots holding the blackened remains of roses cut years ago. The nameless graves were both clustered and spread throughout the grounds, testimony to how people die and are eventually forgotten, no matter how beautifully or if at all their name was displayed. They are forgotten once nobody remains to remember them, and such is the fate of all mortals.  
  
Kurt shifted the bundle on his back as he walked through the grounds. The mere thought of putting his mother in the ground was enough to set him to howling, but he had to do it. Even now, traitor thoughts that there was still somehow hope for his mother kept coming to deter him, but they were countered by fears of Rogue or Logan simply tossing the remains out in the dumpster. He hated himself for thinking that they would, but right now he hated them too. Both of them. Kurt could practically _hear_ Logan taking the news with a sip of coffee and a shrug.   
  
"Good riddance," he would snort, then go back to perusing the paper for something to hold his interest. Didn't matter that Logan hadn't actually said that or anything. Being able to imagine it so _well_ was enough to break Kurt's heart. So were the imagined looks of pity he'd be getting from Jean, the Professor, Beast, Kitty, Scott . . . all his friends.   
  
Logan would at least be honest.  
  
Kurt stopped thinking of the Institute all together at that point and concentrated on the task at hand.   
  
Around the roots of a poplar tree in the biggest section of miscellaneous pauper graves, the soil was loose and free, and he'd be able to dig a grave easier. How deep would you have to bury stone? Kurt didn't want to bury her, but he had to. He had to hide her from the world that did not understand, nor wish to understand Mystique. He had to put her somewhere he knew she'd be safe from those who wished to cause her very memory destruction.   
  
And he was going to put her in that grave, piece by piece, together. Kurt grimaced, lifting the individual bundles and packs he'd filled and slung about his person to transport her to the graveyard. The smallest shards were in a baggie and would be buried next to her, as they were indistinguishable as to where they belonged on her person. He grieved that he could not completely restore her, but at least he could get some semblance of who she was in the grave. After setting everything gently onto the ground, Kurt plunged his hands into the dirt and began to dig.   
  


* * *

  
Most people would think of cemeteries as too morbid a place to spend all one's time at. To Todd Tolensky, walking or hopping over the bodies of dead people never really seemed all that taboo to him. He didn't feel that way out of spite, nor did he make a hobby of challenging polite superstition. Todd preferred using the grave markers as his stepping stones when the paths between graves became narrow. He had even turned it into a sort of game to test his mad jumping skills.  
  
In all the years he'd lived in Bayville and the time he'd spent in this cemetery, Todd had memorized a good many names and fully mapped out the grounds. He knew there was a section of the graveyard reserved for infants and children, nicknamed 'Toyland' because of all the stuffed animals and childhood memoirs arranged around the stones. He avoided that place on the best of days.   
  
On the other hand, his favorite place to hang and catch flies was an abandoned area with absolutely no flowers left. These graves were so old they grew lichen and moss in amounts uncomparable even to the roof of the Boarding House. The dates hailed back as far as the early seventeenth century. Two or three markers abjectly stated that the corpses of burned witches rested beneath, may God "save their souls for eternity."   
  
Todd had always thought that was a cool freaky hats-off to the witch trials, until he had terrifying visions of what a Salem mob would've done to Wanda had she been alive in that era. Todd had no troubles fortunately in turning those types of scenarios into Puritan butt-whupping brawls which quickly put his mind at ease.  
  
Having exercised his mutant powers earlier at his lesiure, Todd strolled down past a grove of poplar trees. He breathed in the cool night air and enjoyed the fact he had nobody to answer to here.  
  
The sound of scratching and panting could be heard just within the grove. Todd froze and stealthily crept up the eroding embankment of earth swelled by the tree roots to see what was going on. He peered around the trunk and nearly fell over with surprise. Nightcreeper?! And he looked like he was digging a giant hole in the ground. Several bundles of cloth were scattered around the edge of the makeshift grave.  
  
Nosy minds had to know.   
  
"Yo, who'd ya kill?" Todd asked cheerfully. Kurt gave a yelp, lurched forward and overbalanced into the hole. In less than two seconds, he had twisted himself back up and crouched before him in attack mode, eyes blazing.  
  
"What are you doing here, Toad?!"  
  
"Whoa, man! Easy! Just wonderin' what you were doing here with all the luggage." The frog-boy reached over and picked up a bundle. "Roadkill, isn't it? Y'know, _some_ animals _do_ depend on scavenging."  
  
"Don't!" Kurt yelped, but too late. Todd had unwrapped it and was staring at part of Mystique's face. He dropped it on the grass as if it had burned him. Then he looked at Kurt in utter confusion.   
  
"Jesus, why you burying her? So she broke. Cement her back together or somethin'."  
  
Kurt snatched up his mother's head and furiously rewrapped it. "Is it too much to ask that you stick to your own verdammt business?"  
  
"It's stupid. Stop treatin' her like she's dead. She's just stone."  
  
"GAH!" Nightcrawler rose, and spun on his heels to glare at the smaller mutant, who tensed in return. "So she has no feelings is that it!? There's no disrespect in leaving her as a pile of rubble on the beach?!" There was a tremor in his voice and he knew he would cry if he didn't scream in rage instead.   
  
Any chance Todd had at tactfully avoiding confrontation was lost in the badly-timed attempt to be openly honest. "Umm . . . well, yeah."  
  
That was the final straw. Kurt launched himself at Todd, his body slamming into the froggish teen and sending the other mutant sprawling. Todd yelled in surprise and pain as his sides scraped between the sharp corners of granite markers. Cloth and flesh ripped as he stumbled still backwards from the collision. He came to a thudding stop against the back of a looming angel statue and slid to rest on his bottom, arms wrapped around his bleeding ribs. "Shit, that hurt! Fuckin' calm down!" he yowled as Kurt advanced, eyes brimming with pain and hatred.   
  
"What if it was YOUR mother lying there in pieces?!" he roared. "Don't tell ME to fucking CALM DOWN!"  
  
"Fine, man, I won't, but stop trashin' on me like I'm the one who broke her!" Todd shouted back. Fear was evident in his voice and he drew closer to the statue, which ironically enough had its winged back presented to him - forever watching over someone else.   
  
Kurt wanted to punch him - to punch _something_ - so badly, that before he could reign in his anger his body was propelling once again toward Tolensky. The boy was ready this time. His heels met Kurt's midsection, letting the elf rush into the blow. Joints unbending, Todd's leg muscles absorbed the shock and forced Kurt's lungs to empty with a painful-sounding 'whoosh'. He crumpled to his knees trying not to retch.   
  
Both boys stayed that way for a while, glaring at each other and nursing their injuries. Both knew that as soon as the other got their second wind, the fight would resume. Nightcrawler was trembling to keep his emotions in check.   
  
"Just go," he whispered when it seemed like he could breathe air instead of fire. "Please?"  
  
"Why you actin' like I intruded on somethin', yo?" Todd wasn't about to walk away. He'd been attacked for no reason in his mind, even though he'd started the conversation in a reasonably friendly manner.   
  
"Because you did. All I ask is that you let me bury her." Kurt looked tiredly at the hole in the ground. He didn't want to have to start all over again. "And that you don't disturb her grave."   
  
Todd threw up his hands, sending droplets of blood flying off his palms. "Fine, whatever. Like I'd unearth a pile of rocks. Are you sure this isn't her too?" he held up a piece of granite by his leg.  
  
Kurt counted to ten. When he could bring himself to answer, his tone was as cold as the rest of him felt. "Have you no respect at all?"  
  
The boy stared back at him solemnly. "I have as much respect for her as she did for me. If you're talkin' about special treatment for the dead, forget it. She ain't dead. Mystique's like a roach. She always finds a way out." Todd thought about this for a moment, then thought about what would happen if she _did_ come back and find out about her statue's abuse at the Boarding house. He got up aprubtly, dusting hands off on his denim-clad thighs. "I'll help ya dig."  
  
The elf looked up suspiciously. "Why the sudden change?"   
  
"Well . . . I'm thinkin' maybe she deserves a little respect after all. Hey, if it wasn't for her, I never woulda met Wanda!"   
  
Kurt wearily rolled his eyes. _Please, Gott, no more delusional frog-boys. Not tonight?_ "Probably would have been committed to the same place," he gritted under his breath.  
  
"Say wha?"  
  
"If you're going to help me with this, then pick up the pace."  
  
"M'kay."  
  
They worked in almost companionable silence, each focusing too much on their own inner thoughts to be awkward around the other. Kurt didn't know and didn't care why Todd was sticking around. In all honesty, neither did Todd.   
  
"So, really, man . . ." Todd asked, after a length. He'd paused to wipe sweat from his brow while Kurt kept relentlessly tearing at the soil. "Why you out here doin' this? You're takin' a big risk. You could be seen. I know she's your Mom, but . . . she ain't the nicest Mom in the whole world."   
  
The elf didn't even stop to look up at him, neither did he tell Todd to shut up. "Mine wasn't either, but at least she didn't try to kill me. Er, as often. Bit of a hellion in my younger days, y'know?"   
  
_Dig, dig, dig._ My, were those worms? And look, a cicada. Todd somehow refrained from smacking his lips.   
  
"You broke her, didn't you?"  
  
_Dig, dig_ . . . Kurt did stop finally to glare at him. "No, I didn't. Rogue did. I'm doing this because she won't - because nobody _else_ will! Someone has to take the responsibility to do what's right!"  
  
"Rogue?" That wasn't a major shock, the way Mystique had messed around with her. "Well, I can understand that. Mystique brought it all on herself, yo. You seriously expectin' everyone to trip over ourselves to help the mutant who royally Screwed Things Up?"  
  
"You're not 'Mr. Popularity' either, _Toad_, but wouldn't you at least want to be buried after you die? Even if nobody mourns, least you'd be in the ground and out of sight."  
  
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Kurt's gut dropped in remorse and horror. That was positively the _worst_ thing he'd ever said to anybody in his entire life. His eyes widened simultaneous with Todd's. "I'm sorry," he said instantly. His gaze lowered wretchedly to his mother's mirrored expression. "I . . . That wasn't what I . . . that was totally uncalled for."  
  
"Don't worry about it," Todd retorted, sharper than he'd intended. He wasn't bothered in the least. Water off a duck's back, and all the other crappy sayings. Whatever; he'd get over it like every other time. "You . . . gave me a new perspective I guess."  
  
The way Kurt winced, Todd wished he'd just gone ahead and jumped the guy. Subtlety was Pietro's thing when he was pissy. Now Todd felt like he was pulling the kicked puppy act.  
  
There was a long awkward silence in which nobody moved or spoke. Damn, he hated those. Didn't everyone?  
  
Todd did the only thing he could think of. He knelt by the hole and continued to scrape out handfuls of dirt. After trying and failing to catch the smaller boy's eyes again, Kurt did the same. Between the two of them, they made a whole about four feet wide and three feet deep. It wasn't a true six-foot grave, but it was enough to keep animals and people uninterested and that was all that mattered.   
  
Kurt laid out his mother's head first, and tried his best to assemble Mystique in a dignified position. Todd worked on the smaller pieces and though there were noticeable gaps, they managed between the two of them to recreate her former state. Kurt placed the bag of slivers and shards that Todd couldn't find any place for on top of her chest.   
  
Twilight was starting its slow creep over the horizon, chasing back the darker shadows to mute the world in greyer tones. Soon enough it would be dawn.   
  
"Goodbye, Mother. I wanted to know you. Wish I could say the same for Rogue. Try not to hate her for this, like I do. I'll always wonder what life might've been like for both of us, if you'd been able to live your life the way you really wanted it." Kurt didn't feel enough tears leaking from his eyes to relieve the aching pressure on his heart. Kurt focused on an unfathomably blurry grain of dirt among thousands.  
  
The frog-boy forced himself not to stare at anything other than his hands when came his unannounced turn to speak.  
  
"G'bye, Bosslady." A few other possible ways of addressing her popped up in his mind, but Todd refused to speak those aloud. The cuts on his sides were stinging with dirt and sweat. He didn't want any more. "You might've been a real hard-ass at times, but I liked you better than Mags. And I'm sorry that I . . . y'know. That I helped mess things up for you and Kurt."   
  
Where had _that_ come from? Kurt had bitten his head off several times, and _he_ was _sorry_ for somethin' that had happened that long ago? Well, it didn't seem unappropriate, but now that he'd opened his big mouth, Kurt was sure to find something else to glare at or hit him for. Tentatively, Todd looked up, expecting to see old memories resurface the older boy's anger.  
  
What he saw surprised and shook him to the core. Kurt's eyes were full of forgiveness. Gratitude for asking it. For understanding finally how he'd been cheated that night out of something he'd been waiting for all his life.  
  
As had Mystique.  
  
"What's her name?" Todd asked, now wanting to smack Kurt for causing his voice to go all shaky. "Raven Darkholme the real thing, or is there somethin' else? She never . . . never let on like it was any of our business. We just listened to orders."   
  
Kurt managed a nod. "Ja, Raven. The Professor told me. Something made him decide I had the right to know my mother's true name." Anxious gold eyes met Todd's. "You cannot tell anyone about this grave. Nobody."  
  
"Hey, if word ever gets out I was here helpin' you do this sentimental horse-shit, I'd be laid out in my own. Figuratively _and_ literally. The secret's stayin' a secret."  
  
"Right. I never saw you. Truce?" Kurt held out his hand. Todd hesitated.  
  
"This the part where we shake hands as friends, or just enemies with a mutual secret?"   
  
Kurt scrutinized Todd's face for a hint as to which answer he wanted. Giving up, he shook his head slightly. "Up to you, mein frieund." The hand was still offered.   
  
Todd grinned and shook it. The way he did this was more of an indication of what he'd chosen than any words could relay.  
  
Hands went back to work, covering the woman's stone fragments with gradually thicker layers of dirt until they no longer could see and therefore feel guilty for pouring dirt over her face. The grave was leveled and roughed out to match the surrounding area soil. Dawn was beginning to blush in the east, and Todd took this as his cue to depart for Kurt's sake as well as his own. He didn't have much time here alone before the sky lightened.  
  
Laying down the final random scatter of leaves and twigs to make the ground look undisturbed, Todd dusted off his hands and began to walk, whistling, back to the cemetery fence he'd hopped over. "See ya 'round, Creeper."  
  
"Same to you, Toad."   
  
He was gone. Kurt sank thankfully to his knees after the last footsteps died away. He leaned forward, pressed his forehead against the cool, packed dirt which separated his mother from him as if it were the veil of death itself and cried.  
  
- FINIS - 


End file.
